


In The Devil’s Care

by Suzann89x



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-04-05 11:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14043522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzann89x/pseuds/Suzann89x
Summary: After the Battle at The Ministry of Magic, Hermione is unconscious and unresponsive, having been hit by a Dark spell.  As the most knowledgeable about such magic, Snape is put to the task of finding a treatment .  With the school year at a close, the wizard is charged with caring for her during the summer break.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is very short, but it’s just a simple prologue. The actual chapters will be longer.

"What spell was it?" Snape looked across the gurney he stood beside.

"We can't be sure," Madam Pomfrey said heavily, "Apparently the Death Eater who cast it was Silenced at the time.  Harry Potter said it was purple; it hit her right in the chest.  I'm not much for diagnosing - I like to know what I'm dealing with before I start treatment. You're the only one with any mentionable experience with healing damage caused by Dark Spells; I'm sure you can determine what this is and have her up and around in no time."

"Thank you, Poppy," Snape gave the Healer a polite nod as she left.  He watched the door close behind the woman before turning his dark eyes back to the patient and placing his fingers on her wrist to check the pulse; it was slow, erratic, and varied from pounding to barely strong enough to feel.  Furrowing his brow, the professor shook his head once, sighing.

"What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Miss Granger?"


	2. A Cockamamie Idea

The halls were abuzz with chatter about what had happened at The Ministry of Magic, the undeniability of Voldemort's return, now that Fudge had admitted to the public that he had seen the Dark Wizard, and Umbridge's mental state after an unknown fiasco in the Forbidden Forest. 

Everyone, student and teacher, were more than pleased to have the pink devil gone, but the confirmation of Voldemort's return greatly dampened everyone's spirits.  Harry and Ron were especially down, their best friend unresponsive in the Hospital Wing.

Snape was disheartened, as well; the longer she stayed unconscious, the longer he had to spend his time thinking about his brief years involved in the darker side of magic - a thing he had resolved to recall as rarely as possible. 

The wizard cut his gaze to the unconscious student, narrowed his coal eyes, briefly cursing the girl in his mind, before returning to the quizzes he was grading; Madam Pomfrey had allowed him to squeeze a small table into Hermione's curtained area of the Hospital Wing so that he could observe her symptoms and still get some work done.  Scratching a "P" on the last parchment, Snape stood, taking two steps toward the cot, then placed his hand on Hermione's forehead; her skin felt cool, even against his own not-so-warm hand.

"Poppy?" he called as he scribbled down _36° C_

The Healer bustled over, "Yes, Severus; how is she doing?"

"Temperature is low; do you have incalfacio elixir?"

Madam Pomfrey flicked her wand and a small vial floated from the cabinet and into her hand, "Here we are - but I'm afraid this is all I have; it's not a potion one often needs in a school."

"But this is hardly enough to raise it half a degree; her temperature is barely _36°_ as it is."

The woman frowned with concern, "I don't know what else to do except keep her warm...I always have to special order it from St. Mungo's, and even you know it takes two weeks to brew."

"Damn it all," Snape growled, "Will you bring me a few hot water bottles, then?  And the thickest blanket here?"

"Of course."

In a few short moments, the Healer had stacked two blankets, one thick quilt, and five hot water bottles on the table where Snape had been grading.

As she bustled back to her other patient, the Potions Master placed a hot water bottle on either side of Hermione, right against her waist, and one on the outside of both of her calves, lifting her head to place the last one beneath her neck before he wrapped her legs with one blanket, placed the second one around her torso, then covered her from toes to neck in the quilt.  Once she looked like a plump caterpillar inside its cocoon, Snape tipped the small amount of potion into her mouth.

________________________

  
Five days passed, Hermione showing little - if any - improvement.

Madam Pomfrey stepped hesitantly to the girl's small section of the Hospital Wing, where Snape was once again observing the patient.

"Severus, she's still not recovering at all?"

Snape looked at the Healer, frowning, "On the contrary: she is completely well."

The woman gave him a disapproving expression, "School is out in less than a week; what happens if she doesn't wake by then?"

"I'm sure Albus will have her admitted to St. Mungo's," he replied with a small shrug.

However, the following day, Snape was otherwise informed; Dumbledore visited the Potions Master in the Hospital Wing, arriving a mere ten minutes after the instructor.

"I hear Hermione Granger has still not woken," the old man spoke, sitting in a conjured squashy armchair.

Snape raised an eyebrow at him, "Your knowledge knows no bounds."

"Do you think she'll regain consciousness before the end of the school year?"

"In three days?  The odds are extremely slim; I don't think you should put off arranging her stay in the hospital any longer, Albus."

Dumbledore gave a small sound of objection, "Ah."

Knowing that could only mean Dumbledore had some cockamamie idea, Snape's voice fell flat, "What?"

"St. Mungo's...there's a bit of a problem with placing Miss Granger there...you see, while everyone knows the general story of what occurred at The Ministry, the details are a bit...obscure."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that, while Voldemort's return was confirmed, and Sirius Black's death has been reported, the circumstances surrounding those events are portrayed as unclear.  If Miss Granger is admitted to St. Mungo's, well, then, the fact that a group of six students were involved and that one was seriously injured would undoubtedly be made public.  This cannot happen."

"Albus..."

"You must see to Miss Granger's recovery."

Snape's black eyes flashed, "You want me to play nurse to a student who would not be ill if it weren't for her own stupidity?"

"Do be less brash with her; tough love is hardly applicable in this scenario," Dumbledore said as he started to stand.

"What if she can't be healed, Albus; what if Miss Granger dies?"

"She won't die, Severus."

"How do you know that?"

Dumbledore sighed slightly, "Because you won't let her - you don't want that on your conscience."

Snape returned his gaze to Hermione, narrowing his eyes a bit as he realized Dumbledore was right.


	3. Book Shopping For The Unwelcome Guest

_Shit. Shit. Shit. What am I supposed to do with her? Shit._

Snape had left Hermione in The Hospital Wing while he went to his home to get things in order for looking after an invalid; he was returning in a few hours to retrieve the girl, as the previous day had been the last of school, and students were going home.

Snape supposed she would have to be put on his sofa, as he didn't have time to clear his various potion brewing equipment out of the tiny bedroom across the hall from his own.

He then Apparated to Hogwarts, and arrived back at Spinner's End in half an hour, Hermione levitating on a gurney-esque pallet at his side.  
After depositing the student on his small, rather worn sofa, Snape started brewing the fever-reducing potion. He completed the first few steps, then stepped to glance at Hermione; her head was lying at an odd angle on the arm of the furniture. _She'll wake with a cramped neck._ The wizard found a small pillow, tentatively lifted her head slightly, and placed the cushion beneath it. _Perhaps now I won't have to listen to her constantly complaining when she does wake.._

The potion having to rest for an hour after it was brewed, Snape made himself a sandwich and returned to the living area to eat. Although she was silent, besides the quiet sound of breath that steadily sounded from her, Hermione's presence irked him. The wizard divided the potion, now completed, into individual vials; he stepped to stand at Hermione's side, frowned down at the girl for a moment, then tilted her chin upward and poured the potion into her mouth. She stirred very slightly, hardly enough to displace a single one of her frizzy hairs. The professor-unwillingly-turned-nurse realized he should most likely observe her through the night; Snape sighed heavily, went to the restroom to do his pre-bed routine, then fell into his stately chair, kicking off his shoes and trying for half an hour to find a halfway-comfortable position. With one final snarl directed at Hermione, Snape closed his eyes and finally fell asleep.

________________________

  
Dismay filled Snape the next day when he woke to learn that Hermione's occupation of his house wasn't just a foul dream. He administered another dose of fever-reducing elixir then began to scour his bookshelves for any information that could help identify the curse she had been affected with. He found something about an empty slumber spell, which put the victim in an entirely dreamless sleep that lasted a month, while their body and mind aged ten years, but Hermione was showing no signs of rapid aging.

After asking his House Elf, Rigby, to keep an eye on the patient, Snape set out to Diagon Alley in search of a book that could possibly help him find a way to wake Hermione. He went to Flourish and Blotts first, heading immediately to the section he assumed the particular type of book he needed would be. It didn't take long for his vigilant eyes to sweep over the shelves and realize he wouldn't find anything useful there. Snape took a bit of relief in that the store was mostly empty, but found himself wishing for the crowds when he noticed a shopkeeper eagerly heading toward him, over-enthusiastically wanting to help. Snape determinedly avoided eye contact and swept out of the store.

The wizard went to Second-Hand Books next, spending considerably longer there than he had at Flourish and Blotts, as this store was organized in a very counterintuitive manner, alphabetizing the books primarily by author, rather than first separating them by topic. Hell if I know who wrote the book! I don't even know what book I'm after! Luckily, it seemed as though a Leonard Inga had written several books on Sleeping Spells. Snape chose the most promising one, purchased it, and left, dreading the next stop he was making. He knew Borgin and Burkes often carried tomes about rare curses - and considering a Death Eater had been the one to cause Miss Granger's state - it wasn't unreasonable to assume a shop like Borgin and Burkes would have the information Snape needed.

Begrudgingly, Snape opened the door to the store once he entered Knockturn Alley, hoping the shopkeep was in the lavatory so they couldn't hear the bell above the door ring, announcing a new customer. No one descended on him, so Snape headed swiftly to the back corner, where the few books the store had were kept. Only four books were stacked on the shelf: an uncomfortably black one called Observing the Obscurus, a thick tome that was a biography of Gellert Grindewald, an apparent children's book called Don't Play In The Mud, and the only paperback, Forty Spells from the Forties, which gave details on what magic had been weaponized by the Nazis during World War II. After flipping through the pages of the last one, the professor decided to purchase it, gave the money to the clerk, then left to go home.

________________________

  
Nothing much had changed at his house while he had been gone; Hermione was still lying unconscious on his sofa, his papers were still scattered about the end table where he'd left them - however, a fire was now crackling in the fireplace and a record Snape recognized as a Frank Sinatra was playing.

Throwing his bag with the books he'd bought on the table, Snape roared, "RIGBY!"

The elf scurried into the room, "Ye - yes?"

"Is there any particular reason you rifled through my possessions to find that record?"

"Music helps. When a person is not awake but not sleeping, music fixes them. Rigby is helping."

"I don't recall asking for your assistance."

"Surely you must remember, sir: this is why Rigby is here - to help. To watch the Miss while you were away. You requested that I watch."

"NOT TO GO THROUGH MY BELONGINGS!"

"Please, sir Snape, don't yell; Miss is sleeping."

Snape spoke dangerously quietly, "Get out of here. _Now_."

  
Rigby left with a snap of his fingers and Snape fell into his stately chair, immediately disappointed with himself for yelling at Rigby - he actually rather liked the House Elf. The wizard couldn't brood for long; he needed to search the books he'd bought for information on what Hermione could possibly be afflicted with.

Snape retrieved a vial of the potion to lower fevers, gave it to Hermione by tipping it into her mouth, then began scouring the new books.


	4. A Complicated Potion

  
The dark-haired wizard sighed as he sifted through the Leonard Inga book he had bought from the Second-Hand Bookshop, carefully reading every word on all of the two-thousand three-hundred and forty-seven page book; he spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening foraging the words, often cross-referencing some of his own books in hopes of making a connection about aspects of spells, but to no avail.  After having lunch, Snape began investigating the book he found at Borgin & Burkes.  Had he not been searching for information to reverse a hex on a girl he was forced to look after, Snape would have enjoyed the read; he had always been intrigued by the horrors of World War II, and found the parallels between the Nazis and Voldemort's followers to be troubling and yet captivating in an odd sort of way.  Halfway through the five-thousand page tome, he came upon a section about the execution of Jewish people and how a number of them in a few of the concentration camps were not killed by the preferred method of the gas chamber, but by using a spell to take their life-force.

 _This powerful spell,_ Expulso D'aruspices _, which appears as a purple jet of light, immediately takes the force that gives life to the person on whom it is cast.  The spell was initially considered to be added as the fourth Unforgivable Curse, however, unlike Arvada Kedavra, Crucio, and Imperius, its effects are subject to variance depending on how powerful the caster is._

_If cast by a novice or if the caster is disadvantaged in a major way, the person on whom the spell is cast will have varying degrees of reactions, ranging from a severe concussion to a slow depletion of life, inevitably resulting in their eventual death._

_Only twenty-four victims - out of an appropriate thirty-eight thousand - of this spell survived.  Their lives were saved by administering the Soul-Replenishing Potion, one of the most complicated and difficult concoctions to make.  The two most renowned Brewers of the time were needed to make the antidote, as no other witch or wizard was skilled enough to accomplish the brew._

Snape groaned in discouragement as he read the ingredients and instructions for the potion - it was made of very simple ingredients - all of which he, luckily, had in his stores - however the method was tedious and specific to an extreme he'd never seen, requiring such things like a certain number of drops of bile every three and a half seconds.  The potion would take six hours to make, and every instruction was strict and precise. 

After seeing that it was only 1:30 in the afternoon, he decided he might as well start brewing; Snape cast a resentful look toward Hermione and went into the next room to begin measuring ingredients.  The wizard collected everything he needed and divided the items into each amount he would require, putting two teaspoons of bat urine in a small bowl and 4 tablespoons into another so that he wouldn't have to measure twice, doing the same for the porcupine quills, goblin blood, phoenix ash, and all the other eight ingredients before starting the water boiling in a cauldron.  He used his antique pocket watch to time the adding of parts to the brew, following the second hand with his dark eyes, determined to successfully create the potion that the best Potions Masters twenty years ago could barely accomplish.

Turning down the heat at the exact halfway point, Snape poked at the liquid, which had, to his horror, thickened into a vaguely gelatinous substance.  _I'm going to have to_ _re_ _start over from the damned beginning_.  He pinched the bridge of his prominent nose, sighing heavily. The man reread the last few steps he had done, but couldn't find anything he'd done improperly.  Snape glowered at the brew.  Suddenly, the potion melted back into a thin liquid; he nearly let out a victorious hoot.

The wizard consulted the page again then added six grams of sulphur dust to the cauldron, stirred it six times counterclockwise, bringing the temperature back to boiling for half an hour before sprinkling seven grams of chilled powdered diamond into the brew.  Snape frowned into the potion, which had become a dark grey syrupy substance, doubting that thirty minutes of low-heat would result in the desired resulting potion.  He lowered the flames, sighing, then went to sit in his chair, watching the time closely. 

His black eyes found the unconscious girl on his sofa and he contemplated why such an intelligent student with so much potential would do something so stupid as putting herself in death's path.  Potter - that was why.  Potter.  How baffling Snape found it that females were enamoured so with dunderheaded Potters.  Harry's father had gotten Lily murdered, and now the student on his couch was at death's door because of a Potter.  Snape snarled, standing to collect the finished potion.

Slightly stunned, Snape blinked several times into the cauldron; the potion had transformed from a thick, deep grey, rather globby concoction into a smooth, silvery liquid that looked remarkably like unicorn blood, although slightly runnier.  _I've done it!  I've successfully completed one of the most difficult - if not the most difficult - potion there is._

He poured the brew into a jar to store it before collecting the amount for her dose.  _Don't get ahead of yourself - it may look correct, but is it effective?_

Eager to find out if he had truly accomplished such a feat, Snape returned to the sitting room; he tilted the small vial at her lips, holding her chin up to make certain the potion went down.  He stared at her.  His coal eyes flitted over her face, searching for any miniscule sign of her rousing, but she remained still as a statue.  Snape furrowed his brow, marching to dispose of the useless potion.

"Did you kidnap me ?" a voice spoke from behind him.


End file.
